August 20209 The agile transformation can be an arduous journey. Several key levers need to be seriously considered in ensuring a positive outcome in the agile transformation, including:a. Leadership support: Leaders playa pivotal role in ensuring that the agiletransformation is successful. There is a strongneed for leaders to provide clear insights todrive high value outcomes, participate in agilerituals, embrace uncertainties, debottleneckobstacles and empower the team. Leadershipfacilitation has shown positive outcomes inthe agile teams, as it motivates the team todo more and creates better buy-in. In a recentsurvey done on the agile cross-functionalteams, among positive feedback receivedinclude "My agile leader is very supportiveand willing to communicate directly witheveryone in the team without any gap". Inaddition, 94% of the respondents indicated thatthere is a strong management support in theagile transformation.b.Clarity of purpose and exhaustiveness in the cross-functional team design: A clear mission, combined with the right team members having the right skillsets are crucial in ensuring the agile cross-functional teams are able to deliver iterative outcomes effectively. In the cross-functional teams, missions need to be clearly displayed, at best on the scrum board, so that there is alignment on the expected outcomes.c. Better governance: Anagile cross-functional team is asgood as the composition of its team members, leadership support, clear purpose and governance.A simplified governance is important to ensure fasterdecision-making. As such,it is important for the agiletransformation team to baselineany governance that impedesfaster delivery and redesign asimplified process that can helpimprove speed of delivery.d.Enablement and enrolment of the entireorganisation: To some, agilecan be daunting and this canimpact buy-in, leading to lackof presence during key agileactivities such as sprint planningand daily scrum. This, in thelong run, may lead to delay indelivery. As such, an organisationwide enrolment programme is important. In designing the enrolment programme, organisations can start by building the climate for agile, conducting constant communicationprogrammes for buy-ins and planning for small successes to sustain momentum. Among the change management efforts done included floor-to-floor awareness on agile, conference, showcases, sharing of successes and agile e-learning. A recent surveyconducted by the agile team hasshown that buy-in is improving,with more understanding onthe reasoning behind the agileprinciples. In addition, some ofthe agile team members haveexpressed positively that theyare able to learn directly from thesquads through conferences andshowcases.In a nutshell, agile transformation, while can yield positive outcomes, can be an arduous journey. It is essential that this transformation be coupled with strong leadership support, clear mandate, simplified governance and strong change management programmes to ensure a sustainable improvement.
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